It may have taken a 10 year break, but British Airways is reinstating flights to Fuerteventura from December 2014.

The flights will operate from Gatwick twice a week, all year round and start from 13th December. The route will be operated on Airbus A319 and A320 short-haul aircraft, which the airline announced would be receiving a new look in the cabin, featuring stylish new seats.

British Airways already serves the Canary Islands with flights to Lanzarote leaving twice a week and Tenerife flying seven times a week.

The UK Prime Minister, David Cameron, has travelled with his family to Lanzarote in the Canary Islands for the Easter holidays.

The Camerons are understood to be taking a self-catering vacation at a holiday villa in the centre of the island, just outside of San Bartolome.

Spanish police sources confirmed to local media that there is a security plan in place for the PM’s visit to the volcanic island, one of the most popular of winter sun destinations.

The visit looks set to do wonders for tourism as Director of Lanzarote’s tourist board, Hector Fernandez, said the PM’s visit was an “important pat on the back” for Lanzarote’s reputation as a holiday destination.

Here at Villaseek we have lots of holiday villas on Lanzarote, and across the Canary Islands. Whatever your political bent, there’s no denying the beauty of the place as a great choice for a holiday!

Easyjet and Ryanair have announced their additional new winter routes for this year.

Easyjet will fly four times a week from Gatwick to Bucharest from 17th October, twice a week from Liverpool John Lennon Airport to Larnaca from 2nd November, and add a twice weekly winter sun route to Tenerife from Newcastle from 6th November.

In addition, Easyjet will also operate a new route from Manchester Airport to Lyon from 14th December. It will also operate London Luton Airport to Venice just in time for Valentine’s day from 13th February 2014.

Ryanair’s Manchester winter schedule includes four new routes to Krakow, Lanzarote, Paphos and Palma.

Krakow flights will operate three times a week and the other destinations will be served twice weekly.

There are 22 Ryanair routes in total, on sale now and starting in October.

Villaseek has many villas to choose from in these destinations, so take advantage of the new routes while they are on and find a bargain winter holiday.

Irish low cost airline Ryanair plans to increase the number of passengers it flies to the Canary islands from just 300,000 in 2009 to 4.5 million.

In February the airline will open new bases in Lanzarote, Tenerife and Gran Canaria (pictured above), with two aircraft based at each airport during the summer season. Thirty-five new routes will be added, bring the total to 112, and frequencies on existing routes (including Fuerteventura) will be increased.

The move marks the apparent victory of Ryanair in a battle of wills with the Canary Islands regional government; the tough-nosed airline previously withdrew some flights (notably to Fuerteventura) when it was dissatisfied with the landing charges and marketing support on offer.

It seems the tourism-dependent islands have now accepted that they need Ryanair more than the airline needs them. Airport charges in the islands have been reduced and a Regional Marketing Fund to support continued air traffic growth, will operate from 2013-2015.

Ryanair says the expansion reflects an investment of £400 million, though whether all of this comes from the airline isn’t clear. It also claims the move will sustain over 4,500 local jobs including 350 Ryanair pilots, cabin crew and engineers. Again, the exact nature of the claim is opaque as sustain isn’t the same as create.

The new routes “will be phased in from February 2011 to deliver more low fares and high spending visitors to Fuerteventura and our new bases in Gran Canaria, Lanzarote and Tenerife,” said Ryanair’s Michael Cawley. He paid tribute to the “visionary initiatives of the Canary Islands Government who, in recent years, have identified low fare access as being critical, and have worked with Ryanair to reduce airport costs in order to return tourism to its previous 2007 record levels.”